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Cystic Fibrosis seminar featured national experts Warren Warwick, Peter Agre

By Carole Leigh Engblom
July 29, 2005

Cystic Fibrosis: Three Perspectives on a Genetic Disease seminar on July 28, featured Dr. Warren Warwick, a national leader in cystic fibrosis care, and Nobel Laureate Peter Agree. The seminar opened with introductions and a molecular biology overview of the disease by St. Olaf Professor of Biology Dave Van Wylen, Professor of Biology Anne Walter and Agre.

Warwick, who graduated from St. Olaf in 1950, is a professor emeritus of pediatrics and the Annalisa Marzotto Endowed Professor for Cystic Fibrosis Care at the University of Minnesota. Warwick will discuss the clinical face of cystic fibrosis and the current state of clinical research.

In 1962, Warwick founded the Minnesota Cystic Fibrosis Center at the University of Minnesota's Fairview Children's Hospital. Of the top five cystic fibrosis centers in the United States, the Minnesota clinic is considered the best one. When Warwick started treating cystic fibrosis in the late 1950s, the average life expectancy of patients nationwide was two years. By 1970 it was 16 years; now it's 33. But at Warwick's clinic, it's nearly 48 and climbing.

The danger with cystic fibrosis - a genetic mutation that makes people vulnerable to lung disease and other disorders - is that too much mucus builds up in the body. It turns the lungs into breeding grounds for chronic infections, which leave scars and make it increasingly tough to breathe. Warwick is credited with inventing a "new cough" for cystic fibrosis patients - a deep cough that literally forces patients to blast fluid out of their lungs - and also for inventing a mechanized, chest-thumping vest for patients to wear. Today, it's estimated that 45,000 people with cystic fibrosis and other lung diseases use Warwick's device.

Agre, a professor of biological chemistry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and the 2003 Nobel Laureate in chemistry, will lead discussions on the "human face" of cystic fibrosis as well as on the ethics and politics of gene therapy research.

Born in Northfield, Agre went to Theodore Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and in 1970 earned his bachelor's degree in chemistry from Augsburg College. He received his medical doctorate from Johns Hopkins in 1974. In 1981, after post-graduate medical training and then a fellowship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Agre returned to Johns Hopkins, where he progressed through the ranks of the departments of medicine and cell biology. In 1993, he became a professor in the department of biological chemistry, a position he still holds.

Agre last visited St. Olaf in September 2004 when he presented "Science Policy and the 2004 Election," a non-partisan talk about the relationship between science and politics.

Contact Carole Engblom at 507-646-3271 or leigh@stolaf.edu.